1.11.2009

A cheesy tale

FYI: I tweeted snippets of this several days ago. For all those who follow my tweets, forgive the repetition.

SO. Several days ago, my father sent me to the grocery store to buy two things: spaghetti, and parmesan cheese. While this is a seemingly innocent little shopping list, the latter item sent me into quite the panicked tizzy. Why, you ask? Because I don't *eat* cheese. I don't know how to *buy* cheese.

*SIGH* I lead such a troubled life.

But, good daughter that I am, I said I would. And asked for a specific brand, description, etc., to make my first ever cheese-hunting experience a tad bit easier. His reply: "Just get a GOOD parmesan cheese. You know, in a little block or something."

Uhhh yeah. Thanks.

Unfortunately, he couldn't give me any more details since he had to start teaching again. So off I went, panic flooding my body, to the grocery store. I wasn't nearly ambitious enough to travel to somewhere like Central Market, where I would be surely overwhelmed by their ENORMOUS cheese section (and through which I always plug my nose because, well, it stinks), so I settled for the safer Albertson's. I only hoped there wouldn't be a large selection.

When I got to the store, I immediately bolted to the pasta aisle and had a box o' spaghetti in hand in approximately 16 seconds flat. I do not mess around with my pasta.

I then proceeded to spend the next five minutes wandering around the store trying to find the cheese section in the first place. By the butter and yogurt? Nope. By the milk and cottage cheese? Nope. By the pre-packaged lunch meats? NOPE. THESE PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW HOW TO ARRANGE A STORE.

But I digress.

I finally found the cheese section -- a large, stick-out black freezer case thingy (with other things like hummus, duh) and circled it a few times, eyeing the surprisingly large selection suspiciously.

Then I went in for the kill.

Or, at least, I tried to. I found ground feta, blocks of cheddar, pre-sliced American...but no parmesan. I found more cheese than I knew existed. I began to get dizzy and spots appeared in front of my eyes so I grabbed the nearest employee.

"HELP!" I moaned. "THEY SENT ME TO GET CHEESE AND I DON'T EAT CHEESE AND I JUST NEED A BLOCK OF PARMESAAAAAAAAANNNNN!"

The employee must have noticed the wild look in my eyes because she immediately put down the stack of salami she was putting up and came to my aide. Approximately two seconds later, she handed me a small, perfectly triangular block of parmesan cheese.

I gaped at her. She had merely thrust her hand down into the cheese bin and come up with the perfect wedge of cheese.

"How did you do that?" I whispered, bowing to her prowess and ability to stand plunging her arm into, um, CHEESE.

She shrugged. "I know my cheese," she responded. And went back to stacking her salami.

Meanwhile, I staggered, drained to my very core, up to the checkout line. Scan, pay, leave.

It was over. My father pronounced the cheese perfect, and we had lovely spaghetti for dinner that night.

Nope, I'm just seriously messed up. It's really just stubbornness. When I was 5 years old, I was eating a grilled cheese sandwich, put it down, and said, "I'm never going to eat cheese again." So I haven't. It's gotten to the point where it just grosses me out now--especially melted pizza cheese. I also really dislike the smell.

We'll see if I ever go back to eating it. I think I'd eat meat before cheese, though (I'm a vegetarian). But we shall see.